<p>Totally let her replace it. I wouldn’t give that even a full minute’s thought. Yeah, phones can be useful for safety situations in rare occurances, but honestly… what are they for 99.99% of time? Calls that a kid can either live without or make contact in some other way.</p>
<p>My son bought his own little prepaid phone. He has to buy all the minutes on it too. When he’s away at school if he runs out of minutes and can’t afford more, and if he needs to reach me, then he can email me or call collect from a land line or something else.</p>
<p>He may opt for a regular monthly plan at some point, but he’ll have to pay for it. Not my problem to keep him connected with his friends. I’m going to have my hands full making those EFC payments to the college.</p>
<p>(By the way, he’s never lost his phone. Probably because if he does he won’t have a phone.)</p>
<p>She can go to the carrier store or a target/WalMart and buy a “go phone” and then buy a new SIM chip to activate in her number. Some carriers replace the SIMs for free, some even have a box of turned in phones people no longer want and she might be able to grovel her way to a cheap one.</p>
<p>One of my Ds was always needing a new phone- I cannot tell you the joy when I put that D onto her very own cell phone plan/bill…she still has the same phone a year later :eek: Amazing.</p>
<p>DH and I do try to live with our old phones so that we always have an upgrade available in case of a true emergency need for a new phone.</p>
<p>Somemom’s solution might just work, and I love Chedva’s idea. The one thing that I would not do is let my kid go without a cell phone to teach a lesson.</p>
<p>3 times in the last year is a lot. I would tell her if this happens again its for her account..bail her out this one last time but not again. A cell phone is a major necessity for their social life; she will not do without one for long so I wouldn’t worry that she won’t get a phone if you don’t buy it for her. To be honest, I think its rather unfair of her to expect you to keep buying them.</p>
<p>Three strikes, she’s out. If you don’t have an old phone around the house, then at MOST you get her a prepaid phone or a kiddie phone programmed with your number and 911 and that’s it. I promise you, if she has to pay for her phone herself she’ll pay more attention to it!</p>
<p>We keep old cell phones in a drawer - the 2 I have are so old they don’t even have cameras (gasp). If my kids lose their phone, I buy a sim card and they get the old ugly one until they can pay for a new one.</p>
<p>Kids today cannot BREATHE without a cell phone. She’ll find a way to buy another one, even if it means no pizza or movies for the rest of the semester.</p>
<p>But once she gets herself another phone, I’d keep her on the family plan. It’s cheaper for everyone involved.</p>
<p>wow. how did we survive as teenagers without cell phones? Are you telling me that the world is that much more dangerous than it was? </p>
<p>Mine would survive forever without a cell phone until they can afford a new one. As a matter of fact, I have never bought them one, and they can have one when they can afford the phone and the monthly fee. Somehow they all lived to adulthood.</p>
<p>It’s my opinion that if she bears the cost, her responsibility level might increase. I would not replace the phone at parent expense. Surely she heard you the first TWO times when you said “be more careful…don’t lose it again.” (you did say that, didn’t you?) </p>
<p>Replacing the phone will cost as much as a few pizzas these days.</p>
<p>My S bought a $30 little basic phone from Walmart that took his AT&T sim card, after his ‘fancy’ phone fell out of his pocket while biking and was run over. A D lost my phone from her pocket during a snowstorm, in the days prior to the whole family having phones. They’re slippery little items. Right now I’m encouraging cell phone replacement ASAP when eligible so we have a store of phones for family use. If running off overseas, I don’t want to be stuck with 2 year contracts that are going unused, or to be unprepared for lost phones. </p>
<p>Not taking precautionary measures to avoid losing a phone because it doesn’t look ‘cool’ I’d say is misplaced values, in addition to misplaced phones. At least in my function over form ethic. My kids have learned to use lanyards and so on after their mistakes.</p>
<p>My S has lost one phone per year since he’s been in college. That’s 3 phones by now. He has paid for each replacement himself. He got the last one a couple of weeks ago from Verizon for $100. He knows better than to ask us to pay. He has always been notorius for "misplacing " things.</p>
<p>When I heard that DD lost her cell phone yesterday, I almost went to get a bottle of strong stuff. </p>
<p>When she became a senior and her E/C list grow longer, we finally decided to give her a phone. One family friend gave us a phone that only speaker works. After a few “incidents” where everyone heard the conversations, we paid $20 for a used phone for her. In less than 6 months, she manages to “loss” it. </p>
<p>She is so paying for the next replacement phone.</p>
<p>Many of us talk about the phone as a safety device. We as parents view the phone as a way to reach our kids or our kids reach us in an emergency. Our kids view the phone as a way of communicating with friends.
My two oldest kids got phones when they began driving. I wanted them to have a phone if they needed it. My oldest had been in two accidents and even though she didn’t need the phone I was glad she had it. The one accident my son had was the of course the time he left his phone at home. My youngest rides horses and sometimes goes on trail rides and I like to know that at least one of the girls has a phone for an emergency. For the longest time I would give her my phone if I was going to be at home.
While my son is away at college he does not have a car. So if he is phoneless due to his actions I feel bad for him and it can be frustrating trying to reach him. But I also remind myself that even when he has a cell he is hard to reach and rarely calls us back.</p>
<p>My son and most of his friends have BLACKBERRYS (can you say “spoiled brats”). I pitched a fit when he got it and he has to pay the difference over his part of the family plan. I have grown to really like the fact that he has the BB. It means he actually READS the emails I send him in real time. We also use Blackberry Messenger sometimes (like AIM but proprietary to Blackberry). I am addicted to my (two) Blackberrys, so what did I expect? I didn’t believe him that “everyone has them” until I saw it for myself. My daughter and her fiance have no desire for a Blackberry. One negative is that if you break it or lose it, it’s a much bigger deal.</p>
<p>Yeah- 2. A work one and a personal one. Two different networks (which is sort of nice) I tend to use the misspelled plural when I refer to the phone as opposed to the fruit!</p>
<p>My nephew (still in hs) had a habit of going swimming with his phone. He claimed he was “thrown in the pool” or “slipped in the pool” or “forgot his phone was in his pocket”. My sister was ready to kill him. It hasn’t happened lately (of course it’s been winter), so we’ll see if there was a learning curve.</p>
<p>Mom60 - hopefully, al the horses have heard a cell phone before. I was on a trail ride once with a friend - I was riding my green 4 year old when my friend asked me if I minded putting her cell phone in my jacket pocket. She said no one ever called her on it. I saw no problem with that. Of course, it rang. That horse spun around and around looking for the monster. I couldn’t get it out of my pocket because of the spinning. When he couldn’t find it, it was off to the races.</p>
<p>A work Blackberry and a personal Blackberry? I thought the whole point of the Blackberry was to integrate work and personal time so that it all became work time?</p>
<p>(written by someone whose spouse has a work Blackberry)</p>
<p>To many parents, the cell phone is a communication line between them and their student. Sort of a portable, private version of the old public pay phones (seen one lately?). </p>
<p>Is it a true safety device? It seems to depend on how it is used. There are some stats that indicate that talking on one with it in your hand while driving is actually dangerous and now some local laws make its use while driving (and particularly in school zones) a traffic violation.</p>
<p>One law enforcement person I know feels that young people who are out and about, especially at night, tend to get “lost” in their phone and make themselves more likely and easier targets for certain offenses.</p>
<p>I don’t feel that a cell phone is protection against crime. And, I take comfort every time my S handles a minor problem without calling. </p>
<p>So, when S loses his phone by not keeping up with it, its function as a communication link to me is zero. So, S can pay for the replacement or do without.</p>
<p>I can see that a child who uses the phone to get assistance with problems may feel vulnerable without one, but when a student repeatedly misplaces their phone it seems to me they don’t feel too vulnerable without one or they would keep up with it. I’m not sure all parents’ sense of vulnerability is the same when they cannot call their child.</p>